(All photos in this article provided by the always beautiful Jenn Parkman, who once fended off three rabid monkeys with swords while jumping over the rooftops of Vancouver in order to set her PVR for a Canucks game. You can follow her and her monkey tactics on twitter @Canuckoff )

As I am sure most of you are doing right now, you are looking at the lead picture and going “Uhhhh, what the heck is going on here?” while a few of you are going “It’s about time a camera man films the important stuff.” I didn’t know whether to finish with this picture, or start with it, but I figure casual readers flipping by will see a camera man focusing on Burrows rear end and think to themselves “I should probably read this.” And read it you should, because I am about to give you WAY more information about the Super Skills than you ever wanted! You think I ramble too long during my game recaps? Wait till you see this bad boy! (Please keep reading. Don’t leave me. Please.)

So let’s set the scene, shall we. Canucks. Super Skills. Talent left and right. One ice surface to show it on. And one impeccably dressed Sportsnet Murph to….wait what? He wore sweatpants and a hoodie? Oh. I see. Well, the usually impeccably dressed Dan Murphy was the MC on the night, and if you add all of these elements up, you have yourself one damn fine super skills contest my friends.

Now truth be told, I missed the Canucks alumni game that happened before the skills contest occurred, so I have no awesome stories about that. But let’s pretend Orland Kurtenbach scored 27 goals and Gino Odjick beat up a bear and a kangaroo at the same time, all while Mika Noronen patiently waited by his phone for the invite to the game. “Did those two games mean NOTHING to Vancouver??”

(Aarom Rome showing why offensive production might be so hard for him, as he carries his stick the wrong way. “It makes me feel like I have a sword if I hold it like this.”)

Another event that occurred before the skills contest was a mascot challenge of musical chairs. Hometown hero Fin faced off against several mascots from various leagues and cities, in an attempt to prove that if Vancouver is good at one thing, it’s stealing an open chair. (We are REALLY good at this. My writing partner j.Bowman once lost a chair during the Stanley Cup Finals of 2011. He is still hurt about this to this day.) While the challenge itself was all lighthearted fun (And possibly rigged. Fin won after the rest of the mascots held down the Buffalo Sabres mascot and beat him up, proving once again, everyone loves beating up anything from Buffalo), I did notice a couple of things about the mascots I would like to point out. Please reference the picture below.

1.) This was by far the creepiest mascot I have ever seen. From its too short shirt, to his eyes that moved around in its eye sockets, to the fact his pupils were bigger than frisbees, there was nothing fun about this mascot. I have no idea what its name was, but it might as well have been “Crack Cocaine Charlie” because I am pretty sure he was on something.

2.) Salty amused me because he looked like a salt shaker, yet was a seagull. Please note the depressing fact that poor Salty cannot afford a proper jersey and had to stitch together his sleeves so they would stay on. The life of a mascot is not all fame and fortune.

3.) Leo went out of the game early, and I am pretty sure it’s because he has a lot of muscle and no cardio. The dude is ripped. To the point where I don’t want to start rumors, but I am pretty sure Leo is hitting the steroids. His muscles were rippling out of his Lions jersey and at one point, he started doing push ups for no reason.

(Seriously, the guy never stops smiling. Cast him as the Joker in the next Batman movie, this guy can pull it off, I swear.)

After Fin’s “victory” (I demand an investigation into this win), the Super Skills contest started. First came the children selected to participate in the skills contest, and then out came the Canucks. While I am sure all the kids are quite skilled, allow me to point out three of them in particular, for having awesome names (If I spelled the names incorrectly, I apologize)

Jake Fury: If he never makes it to the NHL, you know an AHL team in Texas will always have a spot for him as a fighter. “You know The Fury is going to make him pay for that hit Bill!”

Alex Dangler: How do you not put Alex Dangler in every single shootout you ever have? And to Dangler’s credit, he did score an awesome dangler goal on the breakaway relay.

Murray Hills: j.Bowman found this name particularly funny and was a big Hills fan throughout the event. We assume Hills was honoring Bowman’s commitment by scoring two sick sniper shots on the breakaway contest, off the crossbar and in both times.

(Higgins looks on as Coho beats Luongo. A theme on the night. Godson will not be denied.)

The first event to decide was a 3 on 3 game in which the nets were brought to each blue line, and the Canucks attempted to pretend to play a game of shinny. I say attempted because even for a game of shinny, this was pretty laid back. The only one to take this seriously? Cody Hodgson, who saw the tepid pace of the game and said “screw this” and morphed into Cody Godson. Cody got two delightful deke goals on Luongo (Alex Dangler gave him tips, he must have!) before deciding to help the ego of his goalie by letting him get one save. Team White ended up winning this 5 minute game 3 or 4 to 1. I can’t remember because I was too busy giggling over Godson’s sick moves.

(Burrows ponders using his stick behind his back for the puck control relay)

The second event on the night was the puck control relay. They had a team of Henrik, Daniel and Malholtra take on a team of Booth, Hamhuis and Kesler. As expected, the Twins and Manny won this event. What was not expected was Daniel seemingly outracing Kesler during their straight ahead rush, and David Booth cheating when going around the cones. Don’t let that laid back demeanor fool you folks, David Booth has a wealth of dirty tricks he will unleash the first chance he gets. After this, they had Higgins face off against Burrows in a one on one puck control race. Amazingly Higgins abs did not slow him down as many had feared, and he was able to win by an inch over Burrows in an exciting race. “He has dose abs, and dey are ‘ard to beat, eh?”

The second event was the fastest skater event (Local favorite Jake Fury managed second in his grouping. We had hoped he would win first in the Fighting contest, but apparently they don’t hold this any more?), and up first was Chris “Pass me my smokes but remember smoking isn’t cool, this is just a metaphor to show how calm and cool I am” Tanev. I will post all of the results below to make it easier to see what happened.

Amazingly Keith Ballard rips the crown for fastest skater out of Raymond’s hands, and knowing Keith lately, probably beat Raymond several times in the face with it. And he didn’t just physically beat him, he used mental warfare too. When Dan Murphy asked Ballard if it was surprising that a defenceman won the fastest skater contest, Ballard exclaimed “Everybody knows defenceman are better skaters”. I know I make up fake quotes all the time, but that one was actually real. Got a good laugh from the crowd. Keith Ballard’s deadpan delivery is fantastic.

(Daniel enjoying a pass from someone other than his brother. “I love my brother but man, it feels nice to get a pass from someone else for once”)

After this event came my favorite event, the hardest shot contest. Again, for ease of reading, I will just post the results below. I don’t think anybody needs me to describe the players winding up to shoot the puck each and every time.

I am not shocked Salo won, but I thought Edler would put up more of a fight. I am also shocked that Sulzer was not able to beat Bieksa’s power. I love Kevin, I have his jersey, but booming slapshots are not his specialty.

(Henrik patiently explains to Manny that for an added challenge they need to bank the passes off of the crossbar, then the scoreboard, then the shooter.)

The accuracy contest was next and due to me attempting to film, type notes, and watch the event, my number might be slightly off. The important thing to remember is that I got the winner correct. The order listed below is not the order it actually happened.

Daniel “Not Henrik” Sedin: 4 for 6

Alex “I should probably get a raise” Burrows: 4 for 4

Ryan “Premature” Kesler: 4 for 5

Mason “I’m just happy to be here” Raymond: 4 for 5

Jannik “Am I allowed to forecheck the targets?” Hansen: 4 for 5

Cody “I only put it in off the crossbar” Hodgson: 4 for 6

Aside from the judging of hitting the targets being questionable at best, the most surprising thing for me was Cody not going 4 for 2 (I assumed he was going to bank it off both posts). The funniest part of this by far was Kesler going four for 5 and celebrating like he had won the contest, and hamming it up to the crowd. We’re talking fist pumps, stick raised in the air, and motioning to the crowd. Right after Kesler hits his 4 for 5, Alex Burrows comes out and nails all 4 targets in 4 shots. Which of course means Burrows returns the favor by an over the top celebration including a little twirl at center ice. If Canucks.com doesn’t have it posted, I will add it later as I caught that on video camera.

(Cody flinging what I am told were t-shirts into the crowd but what I am convinced were actually thunderbolts. Either that or someone is tossing a giant dental mask at Mason Raymond who astutely grabbed it mid-air.)

The next event was a 3 on 1 event, where 3 skaters would try to beat a defender and the goalie. So basically what we in Vancouver called “the second period”.

Henrik and Edler both scored a goal and almost had a third as Henrik tried to Byfuglien Schneider into the net for a disputed play that remained no goal. Andrew Alberts did not take a penalty during this drill.

Godgson never rests as once again he torched Luongo for a goal, but that was all the group could muster as Luongo and Sulzer shut the door the rest of the way. Sulzer had a Paul Coffey moment where on the 3 on 1 rush he stuck out his stick flat on the ice and blocked the cross ice pass to break up the play. Keith Ballard’s shining moment came on a wicked drop pass through the slot that Luongo robbed Cody on, showing that Keith really wants to play on the power play. “See, I can make drop passes too! Except mine, you know, actually work.”

Daniel Sedin, Manny Malholtra, and Maxim Lapierre VS Keith Ballard

Keith Ballard seeing more ice time during this event than he saw all of last year was now on defence this time, and while he played good, there is one thing Keith was not prepared for; The EA Sports NHL cross crease one timer goal. Ballard could only watch in fury as Malholtra scored two cross crease one timer goals on a helpless Cory Schneider. “They really need to patch that out of the game. It’s ridiculous. I’m never buying an EA game again. First they lie to me about the Finals last year, now this? Screw that.” fumed an obviously angry Schneider after the relay. Manny tried for a third cross crease goal to round out the hat trick, but ended up running Schneider instead. “Refs didn’t call it, I didn’t do anything wrong” explained Manny.

David Booth, Dan Hamhuis, and Aaron Rome VS Chris Tanev

How do you stop a three on one from scoring? Apparently you throw Chris Tanev out there. Tanev played well, but to be fair, Luongo played excellent, as they shut down the always sought after but rarely seen line of Booth, Hamhuis and Rome. How did they stop them? Mostly they let them shoot. Luongo took care of the rest.

(Luongo saving invisible pucks before the shootout contest. “People think I suck at shootouts but I’m busy stopping the real pucks AND the invisible pucks. People never see the invisible pucks. But I do. I always do.” whispered Luongo.)

The final contest of the day was the breakaway contest, or as the Canucks call it “our worst nightmare.” Amusingly enough it became an instance of the irresistible force meeting an immovable object, as Canucks fans got to see which was worse on the day, the Canucks shooters, or the Canucks goalies. The results were as follows: (Please note all shooters got two attempts at a breakaway)

On Cory Schneider

Manny Malholtra: Goal, no goal. Manny showing up Schneider once again, and this time without using a one timer to do so.

Jannik Hansen: No goal, no goal. Interesting to note that Schneider threw his stick to make a save on one of the shots. As a goalie, I enjoyed him cheating and getting away with it.

Keith Ballard: No goal, no goal. Keith Ballard moved in with the puck resting on his blade and then kicked his blade to get the shot off. On both attempts. While it looked fancy, it failed miserably both times. But kudos for at least trying something fun. I will post video of this later if Canucks.com hasn’t already. Luongo wins this duel.

David Booth: No goal, no goal. But his hair was flapping in the wind, so at least he looked cool doing so.

On Cory Schneider

Sami Salo: No goal, no goal. Props to Salo for moving in really close faking the big slapper on one attempt. He had Schnedier down and out (peeing his pants I assume, as who wouldn’t with Salo winding up 3 feet away from you) but Sami lost the handle on the puck and couldn’t put it in the empty net.

Alex Edler: No goal, no goal. He did nothing interesting for me to remember 8 hours later. For shame Alex, for shame.

Alex Burrows: No goal, no goal. Burrows did not attempt his usual backhand move on the breakaway. Thus making me a fool for saying “Watch for his backhand move!” Jerk.

On Roberto Luongo

Kevin Bieksa: Goal, no goal. Kevin Bieksa with about 10 back and forth dekes got the puck to slip in five hole. Not once did he ask me to pass him the puck, though. I was hurt.

Chris Higgins: No goal, no goal. Higgins could not beat Luongo, even after Higgins attempted to hit him in the face with his steel like abs.

Mason Raymond: No goal, no goal. Would he or wouldn’t he was the question on all our minds as Raymond came in on the breakways. Would we see a 360? No, we would not. If Raymond wasn’t fumbling the puck, Luongo was poke checking it away. Luongo did not want to become Raymond’s next victim, that’s for sure.

On Cory Schnedier

Daniel Sedin: No goal, no goal. This was a good showcase as to why the Sedins don’t get the call in the shootouts.

Henrik Sedin: No goal, no goal. Henrik mirrored his brother by failing terribly. Damn twins. Always have to copy each other.

On Roberto Luongo

Cody Hodgson: No goal, no goal. Luongo fought off his demons and beat Cody Hodgson on the breakaway contest. This is why you need to send out Godson, not Hodgson.

Ryan Kesler: No goal, no goal. Kesler got stoned on the first attempt, and then came in looking like he really wanted to score the second one- POKE CHECK. Ah, the vaunted poke check on a breakaway contest. As a goalie, I love watching a skater with his head down mentally preparing his move not anticipating the superman poke check. Nothing makes me giggle more than the looked of anger that flashes across the skaters face as they realize they’ve lost their shot on the breakaway and the shoot the puck away in disgust. Which is exactly what happened here. You could almost hear Kesler say “But that isn’t in the spirit of the game, that’s just not fair!”

(A wicked photo again from Jenn Parkman on this one. Love Luongo’s new mask.)

And that was that. Team Blue won by five points I think? Does it matter? Probably not. All in all, a good time was had, money was raised for charity, and we got to see Luongo win in a shootout scenario for once. What more can you ask for on a day? What’s that? Free pepperoni sticks would have made it even better? Don’t you worry. Roger’s Arena handed those out after the game. Full credit to the Canucks for putting on a good show, and thanks to all the fans who actually read through this entire recap. It was probably way too long, but if you made it this far, I have a free Porsche for you. And by Porsche I mean I’ll wave to you on the street should we ever meet. And if you just scrolled down to the bottom and read that, no wave for you, you cheater.

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